


Light the Way for the Lost

by kanzakimai



Category: Young Justice (Cartoon)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Gen, Minor Character Death, Work In Progress
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-29
Updated: 2016-07-20
Packaged: 2018-06-05 04:19:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 735
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6688897
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kanzakimai/pseuds/kanzakimai
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jade sets out to hopefully find and return with one lost boy, she never expected to return with so much more.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Very loosely based of off this yj anon meme (back-up edition) prompt [[here](http://yjanon-meme.livejournal.com/676.html?thread=1325476#t1325476)]
> 
> because I really wanted to use the line "Cain is a worse father than mine, a seeming impossibility, and Batman now owes me forever. I win."

Jade knows, as she watches the pregnancy test in her hands, that Roy isn't ready for this. _They_ aren't ready for this. In a few years? Sure, she's not against it, and it would have given her new ways to annoy her lil' sis with mandatory, aunt baby-sitting duties. Right now, though? Now is the worst possible time. Right now when Roy- _her_ Roy- is so quickly reaching a breaking point and spiraling out of control with misplaced survivor's guilt.  
  
Right now, Roy isn't the father their child needs or deserves.  
  
And their child- _her child_? They deserve only the very best.

 

* * *

 

 

She packs light. She left the Life, sure, but she didn't get rid off any of her old safe houses around the world.

(She's not touching any of the ones given to her by the Shadows, though. She's no amateur.)

 

* * *

 

 

She doesn't leave a note. She doesn't say goodbye.  
  
She'll be back soon enough (with the Arrows' lost son or with a dead body).  
  
And not a second before that.

 

* * *

 

 

(Of course, life has other ideas. After all, why not kill four birds with one stone?)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Up next ...
> 
> CH.1 - Jade's first little duckling: Cass Cain


	2. Chapter 2

She won't be able to move around too much, not in the later months anyway, and even now she's not too keen on doing even the simplest of jobs to cash in some favors. Anything could happen during the job and she's not taking anymore chances than she already is. It's easier to stick to those who owe her favors instead.  
  
She knows how to multitask around thieves, murderers, and others of her old ilk. No one survives in the shadows otherwise.  
  
Keep your friend and your enemies closer and all that.  


* * *

  
  
"You couldn't have killed him _after_ I got what I needed from him?" Jade asks the pre-teen standing over her now dead informant. Small little thing who looks younger than Jade herself was when she set off on her own. Maybe it's her newfound and upcoming motherhood and the promise to hurt anyone who so much as looks at her child the wrong way that she feels momentary anger at whatever asshole out there is sending this little assassin out on jobs already.  
  
A little assassin who frankly looks sick to their stomach as it is.  
  
Jade knows she should be getting out of there- should have ran away from the room the moment she saw her informant drop dead.  
  
She's transfixed though, watching this kid and slowly realizing just what's going on in front of her.  
  
"That was your first kill," she finds herself saying, and it seems to startle the kid back into reality-  
  
If anything now they seem worse, moments away from puking or screaming or who knows what (her mouth opens and closes but nothing but small wheezing comes out).  
  
Jade remembers the first time she saw a dead man, ages ago maybe even a lifetime ago, remembers how clinical Crock was about it, remembers feeling sick to her stomach but refusing to show it. _Cowards let death break them_ , she remembers him telling her. She'll never admit it out loud but the only reason she didn't break that day, or the subsequent ones, was because she knew he'd force Artemis to succeed wherever she failed.  
  
(Eventually though, she just got over it.)  
  
She knows better now. Knows there are three types. Those who view it as no different than squashing a bug (again, she got over it), those who do it with joy or satisfaction (Crock), and those who'd never willing do it unless it was the utter last resort (Artemis, Roy, this kid as well by the looks of it).  
  
Jade is not good. She's not. She's self-serving, selfish, a trained killer, and ferociously protective _only_ of what she considers _hers_. She never does things for others without first being sure that she'll gain something in return.  
  
She's not good and she doesn't _do_ good.  
  
But this? This she can't allow. She won't.  
  
"Come with me," she says, slowly but clear, quietly but determined. The kid looks at her for a moment, stares at her hand and up her arm until she makes eye contact. Jade watches her take a deep breath and raise her hand.  
  
Her hand, smaller than her own, smaller than Artemis', does not shake, but it's a close thing.  
  
(She sees blond where there is black and it hits her- this could have been Artemis.)


End file.
